sydn3y3's reviews
373 reviews

wow, this book exceeded my expectations. humans are so multi-faceted. such a well written and constructed novel. 
“it is amazing how misery helps the mind to recall and the heart to care.” 
“all my instincts are brighter, now that it is spring. even my sorry prospects appear better. the colors in the grass and sky are brighter, everything excites me: the trees, the budding of the bushes, even the roosters strutting about the roadside.”
“no point in asking what the theme of it is to be, for life works out its own themes.”
when the two army bands played Home, Sweet Home together 😭 and then everyone cheered at the end of the song 😭😭😭 shit got to me
“my men are cooking breakfast and complaining about the chills they feel and their muscle pains. how lucky they are to be alive. how fond tonight they will be of this morning’s health.”
“i felt as if i had lodged myself in a massive mound of fate, that i was a speck on the flesh of this elephantine animal, and was bound to ride it on its mad course.”
“quiet now, except for a group of yanks softly singing John’s Brown Body. A beautiful song.” 😭😭😭😭
“let god forgive us for what we do with what we have, for what we do to the straggly woods and the wide fields.”
i think i like this one as much as if not more than the land breakers. i think this one will be sticking with me for a while. i’ve read nothing else like it. 

not as many great quotes for me as the land breakers, but maybe that’s because i was reading it fast - i’m not cut out for any sort of thriller lol i just had to keep reading to make sure nothing bad happened to august and annalees!! 
however, this book dealt with a lot of heavy shit in such a succinct way, very well done
august sitting in the sunshine at the end and reflecting how he had done well…!
i like how it leads nicely into the next mountain novel, which has to do with the civil war. excited to read it next! 

might come back to this later 

my first 5 star of the year!! finally!! lol at this point i think i would enjoy anything jansson wrote. so straightforward, profound, and minimalist but still makes me ponder over hidden meanings, bits of “truth.” i love literature that deals with art and the human condition!! 

weird, funky stories with religious undertones in most of them. didn’t blow me away but i enjoyed them. none really stood out. we’ll have to see which ones stick with me

kinda cute that i finished this on international working women’s day 🤪 really enjoyed this,  deserves to get 5 stars bc lesbian communists lol but it lagged a teeny bit for me in the second half, probably just my mood but either way. but the last 50-60 pages were read at breakneck speed omg talk about thrilling! really enjoyable to read too, i loved the way there were no breaks in the text other than the four different parts. the shifts in time/scene were subtle. jane austen vibes tbh. but i think that’s what lolly willowes was like too so maybe that’s just warner’s style. will be rereading this someday. also tbh i loved the ending.
“miss vilobie” lol

entertaining and moving to listen to, but i’m wondering if it would’ve been better suited as a podcast or something similar. so NPR coded lol.
i love books that ponder the meaning of life, but idk if i need to get it from David Starr Jordan lol. but i guess that was the author’s point in the end - dont follow his route, but instead embrace chaos and keep your mind open to new things and ideas. be humble and love others. a few things Jordan didn’t seem to be adept at. 

obviously dated but still covers relevant, current issues in journalism, which was interesting to think about - how journalism has been slowly going down the tubes for decades. however, this was just too overwritten for me - i struggled to finish it, although i did end up liking the ending and how it was wrapped up. “laugh-out-loud-funny” is not how i would describe this book. probably would’ve liked it more as an audiobook 

this definitely made me work for it, a little out of my depth but in a good way, a brain-exercising way.
this is the most catholic book i’ve ever read lol i wonder what cristina would have thought of pope francis
i’m in my italian translated lit era

for nothing that cannot be read in many ways is capable of holding our attention for very long

if i write something it is because certain things do not want to be separated from me any more than i want to be separated from them. in the act of writing them down, they enter me forever—through my pen and my hand—as if by osmosis
same girl

very bingeable with a fast pace that lended itself to that, but towards the end it seemed repetitive and i felt like the ending was meh overall. the blatant self-insert is kinda off-putting as well, although athena doesn’t come off as perfect either ofc. a conversation starter if nothing else